Ephesians 2:1-10~Key to Salvation 2-21-12
Dr. Dobson
wrote in his book, the Strong Willed
Child: In graduate school I was told
a story about a medical student who
was required as part of his training to spend a few weeks working in a psychiatric hospital. Unfortunately,
he was given little orientation to the nature of mental illness, and he mistakenly thought he could reason his
patients back to a world of reality. One schizophrenic inmate was of
particular interest to him, because the man believed himself to be dead.
"Yeah, it's true," the patient would tell anyone who
asked. "I'm dead. Been dead for
years."
The
intern couldn't resist trying to talk the schizophrenic out of his delusion.
He sat down with the patient and said, "I understand you think you're
dead. Is that right?"
"Sure is," replied the man. "I'm deader than a doornail."
The intern continued, "Well, answer me this: Do dead men bleed?"
"No, of course not," replied the patient, sounding
perfectly sane.
The intern then took the patient's hand in his own and stuck a
needle into the fleshy part of his thumb. As the blood oozed from the puncture,
the patient gasped and exclaimed, "Well,
what do you know! Dead men do bleed!"
Dr. Dobson used this illustration to show the irrationality when
dealing with teenagers.
A
story is told of “Healing House,” a home established for the healing and rehabilitation
of prostitutes through the Gospel. One Christmas the women who were living in
the home were taking gift baskets of food to those who still lived on the
streets.
As the house van pulled in for some
gas, a couple policemen looked through the window and recognized some of the
women from their former time on the streets.
The policeman exclaimed, “What are you
doing here? We thought you were dead!”
He called his partner over and showed him the women saying,
"They're alive!" And in truth, they
once were dead, dead in their sins. But now they are
saved by grace through faith and are now alive in Jesus.
Pray
Ephesians 2:1-10 The Key to Salvation
·
Consider your past vv. 1-3
·
Celebrate your present vv. 4-10
·
Rejoice in your future vv. 6,7
1. Consider
your past-
Ephesians 2:1 And you were dead in the trespasses and sins
Paul tells that we were “dead” in our sin. As I chat with the ladies in the shelter, one lady knew the bible as well as I did. She had been in Christian rehab for six months. Later she was literally picked up off the streets and carried back to spend three more months in rehab. She readily admitted she was an addict and would be until the day she died. Her prayer was for strength each day to stay clean. She recognized that she was dead in her sins.
Ephesians 2:1 And you were dead in the trespasses and sins
Paul tells that we were “dead” in our sin. As I chat with the ladies in the shelter, one lady knew the bible as well as I did. She had been in Christian rehab for six months. Later she was literally picked up off the streets and carried back to spend three more months in rehab. She readily admitted she was an addict and would be until the day she died. Her prayer was for strength each day to stay clean. She recognized that she was dead in her sins.
How many of us would admit we were
once dead in our trespasses? How many members of churches across this city refuse
to see they are dead? It is easy to look down on some members of society,
indeed members of our own family, and see the sin in their life. Matthew 7:1-5
Before Christ came into our lives we were dead in our sins, by our very nature, like the rest of world.
It has been credited that Billy Graham said, “Before you can get
a man saved, you got to get Him lost!” Paraphrased by Ann, “Before you can be
alive, you have to realize you were dead in sin.”
I
searched for a graphic to illustrate sin, (by the way, my eyes are still
burning from the result on one search engine.) On Google, you can set options
for a safe search. If you have
children in the house, you really need to do this. Back on track, I found an
image and went to the page to check for copyright restrictions. It led me to a
personal blog of a young man, who questions whether the church needs to abandon
the word “sin” and find another way
to talk about our problems.His family was discussing a “friend who is very curious about Christianity and Jesus but always gets hung up “on the sin thing.” You hear all the time that many people love the idea of Jesus, but they hate the church that represents him. Or that Christians are hypocrites because they always talk about sin in the world, sin in people’s lives, etc. while turning a blind eye to their own shortcomings.”
”A personal aside DAVE stated: people hate when you say “hate the sin, love the sinner” and it’s a personal pet peeve to trivialize deeply significant issues with such a trite phrase.
As a word, sin has lost its meaning and theological gravity. In our culture’s vernacular, we talk about chocolate cake being sinfully good. We call one of our favorite getaways Sin City.”
Well, you can imagine I shared much of my teaching in the comments area. Sin is sin-whether it is murder or gossip. But the young man does have a point of in the way we treat the word SIN as insignificant. Referring to the verses on the screen, our response should always reflect the scriptures instead of our personal opinion.
Psalm
51:5 Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the
time my mother conceived me.
Romans 5:12 -Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, (Adam) and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—
1 John 1:10 If we say we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.
Romans 3:23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
Romans 5:12 -Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, (Adam) and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—
1 John 1:10 If we say we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.
Romans 3:23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
Everyone
who believes in Jesus as LORD can be
saved by grace through faith.
2.
Celebrate your present
God formulated a plan to resolve this
issue of Sin from the beginning of creation. When Moses was given the Ten
Commandments, it was no surprise that the people of Israel could not keep the
law.
Our Holy God
by His very nature cannot look upon sin. The penalty for sin is death and the
debt must be paid. A ritual of
sacrifices was prescribed to “compensate” for man’s sin.
Hebrews 9:22 Indeed,
under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the
shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.
BUT GOD made a way.
BUT GOD made a way.
Have
you been saved by grace through faith and are now alive in Jesus?
Celebrate
your present-You are redeemed
Ephesians
2:4 But
God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us,
5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made
us alive together with Christ.
Romans
3: 24and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption
that is in Christ Jesus,
25 whom God put forward as propitiation by his blood, to be
received by faith.
Propitiation has away been a hard word for me to explain. Josh
McDowell does it well in a set of clips on YouTube. The word means “God’s wrath appeased.”
Propitiation Understood—
the removal of our guilt and sin, our
forgiveness granted by the shedding
of Jesus blood on the cross once and
for all, thereby satisfying our holy God’s
wrath.
SLIDE 13 Ephesians 2: 8 For
by grace you have been saved through
faith. And this is not your own
doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. PAID
IN FULL by Jesus precious blood.Our Commentary states “an attitude of self-righteousness shuts the door in the face of free grace.” Pride is probably a Christian’s biggest sin, one that God hates. We can ever stack up enough good works to buy our way to heaven. We must receive it as a free gift, but remember …..it cost Jesus everything.
Please read with me ladies, John 3:16 (KJV) For God so loved the world, that he gave
his only begotten Son, that whosoever
believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
Grace is not a process. Paul says you have been saved, not you will be saved.
Your salvation is fully completed and totally paid for at Calvary.
We are not saved by our works, but we
are saved to do good words. Our
sanctification, setting apart for service to God, is a process that will
continue until we see Jesus. If we claim
to be Christians, bearing His name, we should look like Jesus to the World.
10 For
we are his workmanship, created in
Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk
in them.
Matthew 5:16 let your light shine before others, so that they
may see your good works and give glory
to your Father who is in heaven.
Jefferson Bethke a bold young man who publicly professes Jesus
to all the world wrote. “Jesus isn’t after people “accepting Him into
their hearts” He is after people boldly giving up all they have and following
Him by faith, death, and suffering.
Nothing makes me tremble more at night then knowing there are millions of people (most likely in churches) who don’t know Jesus at all, and are being led to hell under the pretense that they are “good to go” because they prayed a prayer. In fact the main reason they stay distant from Jesus is that they think they’ve already “taken care of that.”
Nothing makes me tremble more at night then knowing there are millions of people (most likely in churches) who don’t know Jesus at all, and are being led to hell under the pretense that they are “good to go” because they prayed a prayer. In fact the main reason they stay distant from Jesus is that they think they’ve already “taken care of that.”
The truth is, if a boulder dropped on top of you,
you’d look different after the fact. Why is it then that supposedly when the
most glorious, holy, amazing, and beautiful infinite God of the universe
“drops” on us we don’t look any different? You are saved by grace, but
real grace changes you.”
Let’s glorify His name in our everyday
lives: at home, in the grocery store, to strangers we meet.
We are
saved by grace through faith and can share Jesus with the world.
3-Rejoice in your future
Ephesians 2: 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so
that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable
riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
Ladies, we don’t have to wait to enjoy
the immeasurable riches.
Day Three questioned: What purpose
does God have in mind for your future?
John 10:10
I came that they may have life and have
it abundantly. To the full
Peter 1:3 Blessed be
the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be
born again to a living hope through
the resurrection of Jesus Christ
from the dead,
4 to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading,
kept in heaven for you,5 who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in
the last time.
GRACE unmerited favor; great riches at
Christ's expense. It is a gift. You
can't buy it, you can't work for it, you can't even lose it. Will you accept
this wonderful treasure that God has reserved for His children?
Close you eyes now. Open your hands,
palms up and accept the gift He is offering to you freely given, but at great
cost to Jesus Christ, our redeemer , our Savior, our co-heir of all the riches
available to you now! Joy, peace, love, grace, and unbounded mercy.
Will you choose to live the life that
God has planned for you- the life Jesus purchased for you with His life's
blood?
Sing with me, eyes still closed, hands
still open. Chorus of I surrender all. Pray
